Will there be a second wave of coronavirus in the UK?

PROFESSOR Chris Whitty issued a stark warning that the virus was doubling roughly every seven days and told Brits to take the pandemic seriously.

As Covid cases have accelerated, Prof Whitty warned that the country could be facing 50,000 daily cases and 200 daily deaths if the country does not act now.

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Will there be a second wave of coronavirus in the UK?

Experts argue that the country never really saw the back of the first wave of coronavirus cases in the UK.

Following the first lockdown, death tolls dropped and there were fewer cases.

Restrictions were slowly lifted as the country battled to get back to a "new normal".

But worrying figures revealed by Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance have shown that the UK is at a "critical point" and that if we aren't careful cases could spiral out of control over the next few months.

What are the experts saying about a potential second wave?

As cases of the virus rise in the UK and across Europe, Professor Whitty and Sir Patrick explained how the bug is spreading as the nation moves towards a challenging winter.

Using charts and graphs to set out the latest figures, they showed how the virus isn't just spreading among younger people, but now older generations too - and more people are in hospital as a result.

Professor Whitty added that everyone has a part to play in stopping the disease, saying: "This is not someone else's problem, this is all of our problems.

“We must see this as a six-month problem – we have to take this collectively very seriously.”

What is the current R rate?

The latest R rate estimate for the whole of the UK is between 1.1 and 1.4.

The reproduction number is a way of rating coronavirus or any disease's ability to spread.

It's the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to, on average.

If the R rate is higher than one then the number of cases increases.

If the number is lower than one, it will eventually stop spreading.

In Scotland, the number is between 1.1 and 1.4, in Wales it's between 0.7 and 1.2, Northern Ireland is around 1.2.

In England, the highest estimated R rate is in the South West where it is between 0.9 and 1.6.

What exactly would a second wave look like?

Sir Patrick warned: “In every age group we have seen an increase.

"It is now estimated that roughly 70,000 people in the UK have Covid infection and that about 6,000 people per day are getting the infection.

“If that continues unabated and this grows doubling every seven days then what you see… is by mid October we would end up with something like 50,000 cases per day."